Jesus Movement?

Last week, Incarnation had the great honor of hosting the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Church Pension Fund. Officiating at the Eucharist and preaching was none other than the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev. Michael Curry.

This was clearly a great honor–there are over 10,000 individual Episcopal Churches, so clearly most parishes never see a Presiding Bishop.

Bishop Curry spoke as he often does of our Church as “the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement.” I certainly couldn’t disagree with this description of our church. But I wonder if it sounds a bit too evangelical?

God knows, we need evangelism; our membership continues to decline. But we want to be sure to draw a contrast between our branch of Christianity and fundamentalist Evangelicals. Still, if we let them claim exclusive rights to be followers of Jesus, we’ve certainly lost something!

And at any rate, the word, “movement” is apt. Our church sometimes seems to be so bound up with tradition that we can’t change or “move.” And everyone, young and old, is happy to be part of a movement that is going forward, growing and contributing to the joy of the world. —J. Douglas Ousley